| Non-Fiction | |||
Color Him Father: Stories of Love and Rediscovery of Black Men by Stephana I. Colbert & Valerie I. Harrison |
Color Him Father: Stories of Love and Rediscovery of Black Men is both a tribute to and a celebration of Black fathers. Seeking more positive, balanced images of African-American men than the news media seems to allow, the editors embarked on a journey to collect true, anecdotal narratives about Black fathers from those who love them. The 36 contributing authors represent a diverse assortment of children, mates and friends of all ages and stations in life.
Review courtesy Book Clearing House. |
The Covenant with Black America by Tavis Smiley |
Six years' worth of symposiums come together in this rich collection of essays that plot a course for African Americans, explaining how individuals and households can make changes that will immediately improve their circumstances in areas ranging from health and education to crime reduction and financial well-being. Each chapter outlines one key issue and provides a list of resources, suggestions for action, and a checklist for what concerned citizens can do to keep their communities progressing socially, politically, and economically. Though the African American community faces devastating social disparities—in which more than 8 million people live in poverty—this celebration of possibility, hope, and strength will help leaders and citizens keep Black America moving forward |
Never Drank the Kool-Aid: Essays by Toure' |
His name is Tour --just Tour --and like many of the musicians, athletes, and celebrities hes profiled, he has affected the way that we think about culture in America. He has profiled Eminem, 50 Cent, and Alicia Keys for the cover of Rolling Stone. Hes played high-stakes poker with Jay-Z and basketball with Prince and Wynton Marsalis. In Tours world, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. sits beside Condoleezza Rice who sits beside hip-hop pioneer Tupac Shakur, and all of them are fascinating company. Never Drank the Kool-Aid is the chronicle of Tours unparalleled journey through the American funhouse called pop culture. Its rooms are filled with creative, arrogant, kind, ordinary, and extraordinary people, most of whom happen to be famous. It is Tours gift to be able to see through the artifice of their world and understand the genuine motivations behind their achievements -- to see who they truly are as people. This is a searingly funny, surprisingly unguarded, and deeply insightful look at a world few of us comprehend. |
Hung Scott Poulson-Bryant |
In a brilliant, multilayered look at the pervasive belief that African American men are prodigiously endowed, Scott
Poulson-Bryant interweaves his own experiences as a black man in America with witty analyses of how black male
sexuality is expressed in books, film, television, sports, and pornography. Hung is a double entendre, referring not
only to penis size but to the fact that black men were once literally hung from trees, often for their perceived sexual
prowess and the supposed risk it posed to white women.
For Poulson-Bryant and other men of his generation, society’s deep-seated obsession with the sexual powers of black men has had an enormous, if often deceptive, influence on how they perceive themselves and on the assumptions made by others. His tales of his sexual encounters with both sexes, along with anecdotes about the lives of various friends and colleagues, are wryly and at times shockingly revealing. A mixture of memoir and cultural commentary, Hung is the first and only book to take on phallic fixation and uncover what lies below. |